I’ve never spent more than a few days on a yacht, so when the opportunity arose to join my friend and her family, with my son and his girlfriend on a week’s sailing around Mallorca I jumped at the chance.

There were eight of us all up, including our intrepid Dutch Skipper, Wytse.I say intrepid because he truly was courageous to take this crew on for a week.Of the seven passengers, three were Dutch, one Russian, one Spaniard, and two Australians, ranging in age from fifteen to mid fifties.

It truly was a boat-full of fun, and started from the minute we converged at Barcelona’s El Prat airport, with some of the younger crew meeting us there after pulling an all-nighter in Barcelona.

Arriving at the impressive Palma Airport after a short fifty-minute flight, we jumped straight in a taxi and headed forty-five minutes south east to the pretty little Port of Cala d’Or.We had about five hours to kill before our boat would be ready for us to ‘check in’, but our intention of laying on the beach for a few hours in between was thwarted when the rain started to come down by the bucket load.With nowhere to leave our luggage and not many options we spent our first day in a very hospitable bar/restaurant at the Port, some of us sleeping, some of us topping up from the night before!

Not a very exciting start, however once we made it aboard the boat, had a nice dinner and got some sleep we were well and truly ready to start our holiday.But first we needed to stock up at the Supermarket.This was lesson number one of sailing – you need supplies so you have the freedom to moor wherever you please, whenever you please.All stocked up (for at least two days) we headed north with the rain on our stern!

After a few hours sailing, and a few seasick passengers, we found a sparkling little sanctuary away from the rain in Cala Magrana, and decided to spend the rest of the day and night there.The excitement and relief on arriving in the crystal clear waters of this spectacular haven was overwhelming as we donned our snorkeling gear and took off from the boat. A fabulously rustic BBQ lunch settled us all in, and we prayed for the rain to stay away.

Unfortunately no one upstairs was listening and the next day the weather did not look good for our plans to continue north.Lesson number two of sailing - you can change course – so we decided to try and chase the southern sun.

After a few hours we had to wonder if we’d made the right decision as we huddled below deck out of the rain, whilst Wytse did his best to outrun the weather.By lunchtime it wasn’t looking promising, so we all agreed to pull into Portocolom and wile away another afternoon in a restaurant out of the rain, and, to get relief from our seasickness.Lesson number three of sailing – pack plenty of seasick or ginger tablets, just in case!

By late afternoon the weather was clear again, and thank God or whoever it was upstairs that finally got our message, we enjoyed rain free and mainly sunny conditions from that point on.

The days and nights that followed were a perfect mix of beautiful but busy bays with pure white sand; and almost deserted craggy little hideaways, with a few sleepovers just outside Portocolom and the Port of Sant Jordi.The subtle changes in landscape, architecture and population kept the voyage interesting, and alternating our meals between the boat and onshore provided the best of both worlds in a holiday.Thanks to Wytse, who chartered our course each day depending on the conditions, we really sampled a compelling variety of what Mallorca has to offer.Lesson number four of sailing – get yourself a good Skipper who knows what he’s doing.

Our days were filled with snorkeling, swimming, eating, drinking cocktails on the beach, and our nights with more eating, drinking, dancing and singing.I was the first one up most days, determined to take advantage of being able to swim in the ocean straight out of bed.And, I was also one of the last ones to sleep at night, and therefore very grateful for the lazy days in between.

If I were to say we had a favourite spot during our voyage there’s no doubt the charming Cala Pi would win hands down.Pulling up late afternoon and watching the sun go down on this picturesque little bay set the scene for a wild night of fun and frivolity, which almost lasted until the sun came up again!Dinner on the cliff top above the bay was spectacular at the Ona Cala Pi Club and was followed by a hilarious and obviously impressive group Karaoke performance (they begged us to come back the following night). On return to our boat an earlier invitation to our nautical neighbours to join us for post-dinner drinks was taken up, and three French sailors jumped aboard and helped us to drain our bar supplies and fine tune our Karaoke skills until early morning.

The age gap between our crew seemed to close considerably during those seven days, and after living in such close quarters, all showering above deck and sleeping wherever we fell, I came away from this ‘camping on the water’ holiday very happy that we’d all got along so well considering the potential confinement a 46.5ft yacht could present.Final lesson of sailing – make sure you’re traveling with an easy going, fun loving, like-minded crew!!!

A FEW MALLORCAN FACTS:

·Mallorca is the largest island in Spain located amongst the Balearic Islands, and is 3,640 km²